


Mathom

by SharpestRose



Category: Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003), Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-15
Updated: 2011-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-21 10:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/224001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Sam's birthday and Rosie's causing trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mathom

There had been warm days in the Shire before, but Sam was willing to wager that there'd never been and rarely was again one so warm as that of his coming of age. It was sticky, dense, humid, and generally a miserable wilting sort of day. Sam's hair was glued to the back of his neck with perspiration and no matter how many times he wiped his palms on his weskit he couldn't stop them being uncomfortably clammy.

The morning had been nice, solid sort of weather, luring everyone out-of-doors before turning thick and hot. He found Marigold dozing in the shade of the orchard with Tom Cotton, the slumbering hobbits demonstrating the heat of the day by removing all non-essential items of clothing. At least, that's what Sam decided he'd stick to as a reasoning, because though he knew that for every year of his Marigold got one of her own he found it troubling to think of his wee sister tumbling in the hay with Tom. After all, all folk knew what was said about those Cottons.

"What's said, then?" a curious voice asked him from up one of the trees, and Sam cursed himself for thinking out loud again. It was Rosie, Tom's sister, munching on an apple and lazily flicking the seeds with thumb and forefinger. She crossed her ankles around a branch and swung herself upside down, so that she was at eye-level with Sam from the other direction "Hmm?"

Sam blushed, casting his eyes down at the ground. "Rose, I can see your drawers," he mumbled, the day miraculously twice as warm again.

"So? You've got enough sisters, Sam Gamgee, I'm sure you've seen your share of drawers." Rosie munched another large mouthful of fruit and gave him a juicy smirk. "Not all of them your sisters' either, I reckon."

" _Rose_." Sam put his hands on his hips. "No wonder people talk about you and your brothers as they do."

"Ted Sandyman's not people," Rosie said with a snort. "He's just sore because I won't step out with him. Are you going to start being seen with lasses now, Sam, now that you've grown up and all? Speaking of, where's my present, then?"

"Well, you wouldn't tell me what you wanted, would you?" Sam grumbled.

"I want a kiss. C'mon, Sam." Rosie, still downside up on the branch, watched Sam's cheeks turn crimson and laughed, twisting around to throw her apple core at Tom and Marigold. The pair just shifted, swatting at the thick air languidly, and fell back into deep dreaming.

"Don't be daft as well as a ninny," Sam finally managed to mutter.

"You've promised that present to someone else, haven't you?" Rosie's mouth became an 'o' of surprised interest. "I bet I know who - Mr Frodo!"

Sam whirled around in surprise as Rosie unclasped her legs and thumped to the ground as gracefully as a sack of potatoes, jumping up and running to the orchard's low picket fence before Sam could gather his wits. Mr Frodo had been walking past, nose buried in a book as usual, a stem of grass between his teeth.

"Hullo Mr Frodo." Rosie coupled the words with a bob of her head, a movement Sam had come to think of as the Cotton Curtsey because it was the closest the impossible girl ever came to politeness. "It's our Sam's birthday today, you know."

"Yes, Rose, I did know." Mr Frodo smiled. "He gave me my present this morning."

"Did he now?" Rosie turned to Sam with a smirk and he felt the terrible urge to remind her of her childhood habit of eating beetles as revenge for this torture.

"Are you liking the book then, Master?" Sam asked, raising his chin at Rosie with a small smirk of his own.

"It's fascinating, the language is very lyrical." Mr Frodo, ever absentmindedly oblivious, addressed Rosie again. "Have you had your present, Rose?"

"Sam was just about to give it to me, as a matter of fact. Weren't you, Sam?"

"I was?" Sam looked from Rosie to Mr Frodo and back to Rosie again and swallowed. Drat this heat, it made it so difficult to think.

"Yes. You were," Rosie persisted, tilting her head back.

Sam sighed, stepping in and pressing his mouth to Rosie's lips and pulling back again as fast as he could. He'd never kissed a girl and felt for sure he'd get it wrong one way or another if he gave himself time to think about it. When he looked around again, Mr Frodo was smiling softly. Sam looked down at his feet, blushing. At this rate his cheeks would never be anything but berry-red again.

"You taste like marmalade. Doesn't agree with apples well," Rosie commented after a short period of consideration.

"If you hadn't been gobbling all morning your mouth wouldn't still be full of the taste," Sam sniped back. Mr Frodo laughed.

"You two, behave." Then, attention back on the printed page, he continued his walk.

"There, that wasn't so difficult was it? You're not half bad at it, even with the marmalade." Rosie wandered merrily back over to her tree. "And Sam?"

Sam sighed. "What, Rose?"

"I do like fairy stories, you know. Perhaps you could get a book of them for me next year?"

Blinking with surprise, Sam watched her scale back up to her perch on a branch halfway up the trunk. "All right, then. Glad you're still able to make a sensible suggestion when it suits you."

"Swap the gifts around, like," Rosie giggled.

" _Rose_."

"Oh, stop giving me that look. Here, catch!"

She threw an apple down to him, which Sam caught only as a way to defend his skull from the trajectory. A sticky outline of the shape of her pout was vaguely visible on the skin.

"Can't have you tasting like marmalade forever, now can we? What if I want another round of it later, or Mr Frodo decides he doesn't like his book after all? You Gamgees, never thinking things through as you ought to."

Sam didn't reply, opening his mouth wide and chomping down into the apple with a satisfying crunch. Perhaps hot days weren't so bad after all.


End file.
